Because there really is a zero sum game aspect to social media. We only have 24 hours in a day, and we have to decide where to spend those hours.

That daily time limit is what makes FriendFeed so disruptive.

Allocation of the 24 Hour Day

The chart below is a hypothetical day of a relatively advanced social media user (no laughs about Facebook please):

The chart shows our social media user at three different points. I’ve taken the liberty of assuming that certain core life stuff is maintained consistently: sleep, eat, work, family. All else is flex time.

So with the core life stuff constant at 19.5 hours, and more time spent on FriendFeed, something’s got to give? But what?

Not websites and blogs. In fact, their page views go up because of FriendFeed. Their content is the currency of FriendFeed conversations.

I think the two services that get hit the hardest as FriendFeed grows will be:

Twitter

Crowdsourced aggregators: Digg, Stumbleupon, LinkRiver, Reddit

Twitter

My two cents. FriendFeed direct posts feel like Twitters, only you can see the whole conversation, not just part of it. FriendFeed lacks the @reply and DM, so if those are important use cases, yeah it’s not replacing Twitter. But for putting something out there and having your subscribers weigh in…well, it feels like Twitter.

I’m not the only one. Two heavyweights in the blogging world have expressed their feelings about using FriendFeed in lieu of Twitter:

Steve Rubel :”Who’s spending less time on Twitter and more time here? I am.”

Duncan Riley: “@geechee_girl true, and if I can switch to FF with everyone on Twitter, I’d start considering swapping most if not all of the time”

The key to Twitter’s success is not it’s haiku format, it’s the community, as Duncan Riley mentions. Twitter is growing fantastically, as more people adopt it (and unfortunately stress its current platform). That community is what makes it vibrant special. FriendFeed appears to be rapidly growing its own community. I’ll be curious what the Compete.com May numbers look like for FriendFeed.

Note in the allocation of the day, I don’t eliminate Twitter. People have built up their networks there, and tweeting has become a habit. Also, the @reply function is quite popular, as is the DM. One might ask if those functions aren’t essentially covered by instant messaging and email, but Twitter fans love ’em.

But I see the direct post + comments as taking interaction away from Twitter.

Crowdsourced Aggregators

The basic function of these applications is to surface the content receiving the most votes. Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit and LinkRiver are great for discovering content that others have found valuable. Digg includes robust, active commenting.

Well, doesn’t that sound like FriendFeed? The system of ‘Likes’ and comments ensures that community-ranked content appears at the top of your FriendFeed page.

Again, FriendFeed doesn’t kill these services. StumbleUpon, for example, has a persistence to it that FriendFeed lacks. Content gets its moment in the sun on FriendFeed, then gets buried in pages further back. I’ve noticed the StumbleUpon activity around content can last for days, weeks.

But over time, as users discover ranked content on FriendFeed, I’d expect them to cut back their time on the other crowdsourced aggregators. Not stop using these other services, but check in on them less frequently.

Final Thoughts

Perhaps as MG Siegler said, there really is room for all of these social media apps. Folks will just expand the amount of time they devote to them. But I question that assumption. Your employer still pays you for your hours. Your kids still want your time. The human body needs its sleep. And you still need to eat.

FriendFeed is disruptive because it challenges a number of other applications. If you find something that offers an outstanding experience and provides a good percentage of what you like in other social media apps, wouldn’t you spend more time there?

14 Responses to Why FriendFeed is Disruptive: There’s Only 24 Hours in a Day

1) Way too much sleep. 7 hours? Really? You should be doing 4-5 max.
2) Eating, in theory, should take no time. Eat in front of the laptop or TV. That means it doesn’t take any additional time.
3) Exercise should be zero. Just look at the Web videos of people who do social media well. They clearly don’t exercise.
4) Friends? You mean online, right? Back down to zero.
5) Newspapers/magazine/books. 0.0 again. Seriously. What’s the point?

I agree with Louis on all counts – but I’d also note that my chart is pretty different.

I’m not saying that FriendFeed isn’t going to replace some of what I do online, in fact when I originally wrote about it last October I praised it as doing just that – but I just don’t see it replacing Twitter and especially not Google Reader for me.

Part of a developing need to become more selective with our social networking all round, given the time commitment that it can demand. I had to pull back from a too scattergun approach, and I notice I spend much less time submitting and commenting directly to Mixx/Sphinn/StumbleUpon. I’m not sure that’s a good thing as it means I’m adding less value to the social network overall.

FriendFeed, like Twitter, I find advantageous in that I can stick up a window and leave it running, glancing across from time to time to see if there’s anything pertinent. It doesn’t *feel* like it’s taking as much time out of the day as social networking sites that require specifically visiting a page/submitting material. That may well be a false impression though.

Louis might be a little extreme. I’d say definitely exercise because that is vital to your long term health. Eat dinner at the table and relax, breakfast and lunch are on the go meals. It may not give you more time but mind and body balance is essential.

@Louis I can’t WAIT until those babies are born. Being at the point at which Sesame Street is a gateway drug I can park a child in front of for an hour to get a few feeds read is a dream compared to the infant bit. They sleep a lot, but when they AREN’T sleeping, there’s none of this “eating in front of the laptop” bit. You are lucky if you eat at all. ;)

@Louis – I think I see a future in time management for you. Someone needs to write the successor to the Four Hour Workweek. And I know exactly which web video to which you’re referring from the past couple days.

@MG Siegler – Time will tell on where FriendFeed eventually settles in terms of usage. Aside from what’s written in the blog post, there’s a lot of other services that may feel the crunch. an earlier post talked about that some (incl. Google Reader): http://tinyurl.com/4tyqos

@Julian – great points. Those are things about which I am mindful. Exercise – I feel better when I do it. Eating – I could be better about that. Family – you never get this time back with your kids. I’m always aware of that!

Hutch, I KNOW! I remember telling someone after having my first that if I was ever going to have multiples, it would have to be the first one, because I think I’d lose it once I knew what it would be like. Of course, my first slept through the night at 5 weeks, so I was unprepared for #2, who spent his ENTIRE first 6 months screaming his fool head off 24/7 to the point where people would come spent the night walking the floor with him so I could sleep. Not that I want to frighten Louis or anything. ;)

Glad you took time to do exercise. That’s where I am lacking at. I put 12 hours for my work(since I do double job), 7 hours of sleep too, 3 hours preparation to work plus transportation to and from work, and 2 hours eating with friends and family. So basically I got no time for personal internet surfing and exercise… Now I need that 25 hours a day.